Peripheral devices, such as printers and scanners are commonly connected to a network. This arrangement allows a number of client computers attached to the network to share the services of the network printer or the scanner. A multifunction peripheral (MFP) may combine the functions of these peripherals into a single peripheral. These MFPs may also be connected to a network peripheral server. Because the MFP may not know about the network if that information is localized to the server, the server must relay the messages or alerts representative of events sent by the MFP to a user in an efficient, timely and reliable manner. Typical events might include a user initiating a scan by the peripheral or delivering a received fax. It is important for the server to be able to relay the message correctly.
One problem the server faces is that alerts or event messages must be relayed only to the intended user(s) and no others. After receiving an event message, the server needs a way to identify the intended host(s) and be able to send that particular event message to that host(s).
One method involves using a Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) trap protocol to send alerts. Another method involves the server broadcasting events to all the hosts connected to the network. These methods provide a single way to send the events, and do not handle different data formats. Further, such methods do not handle unknown events well.